Charlotte Kramer: Madam President Part 6

"Madam Secretary, do you mind if our friends from CBS News ask a few questions before we move on? Azeeza, would that be all right? Your story is compelling, and you are so brave. It's important for the American public to know that there are strong leaders like you guiding your country."

"I don't mind," Azeeza said.

I mind, Melanie fumed.

"Azeeza, you must be aware of how eager the American public and our elected officials are to disentangle ourselves from your affairs, and I wonder how you feel about our ongoing presence in your country. Is it helpful, or does it do more harm than good?"

Azeeza was ready for the question and offered an eloquent defense of the American-Iraqi partnership. She also discussed the need for international investment in education and infrastructure.

"Thank you, Azeeza," Melanie said.

"Azeeza? This is Richard. I'm Lucy's lesser half. Well, not in real life, just on television. That was a joke. Is any of this translating?"

"You're not being translated, Richard. Everyone here speaks En-glish," Melanie corrected. She was annoyed that they were trying to turn the town hall meeting into a CBS News interview.

"Oh, right. Sorry. Azeeza, does your husband have any role in creating a new generation of male leaders who see women as their equals? Because it seems to me that all of the courageous women in the world will fail at changing society if you can't teach young boys to grow up believing that their sisters and daughters are their equals and deserve respect."

Melanie knew exactly how Azeeza was going to answer Richard's question, and if Richard had read more than the first paragraph of the briefing materials that had been provided to the Washington partic.i.p.ants, he would, too.

"My husband was murdered for working with the Americans in the early years of the war. He was a translator and he was killed. That's why I serve now."

"Oh, G.o.d. I'm sorry. You're even more impressive to me now. Jeez. Thank you for what you're doing over there."

"Over here is my country, sir. It is my home."

"Of course," Richard mumbled.

Melanie summoned her travel aide. "Get Dale on the phone, and tell her to cut off Richard and Lucy. We can't use our partners as props in a White House infomercial," she whispered into his ear.

He nodded.

"Tell her that if Lucy or Richard speak again, I'm going to pull the plug. They were supposed to observe. They were not supposed to interrogate our partic.i.p.ants."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll call Dale right now."

Melanie had a hard time staying focused on the rest of the conversation, because she was so irritated that the president had allowed Lucy and Richard to partic.i.p.ate. The deal was that they could film an event that would otherwise have been closed to the press. As soon as the videoconference ended, she asked her travel aide to get Dale on the phone again. He tracked her down immediately.

"Dale?"

"Yes, ma'am. I understand that you're upset, and I'm sorry about that. Lucy pa.s.sed the president a note, and I didn't have any idea that she'd asked to speak until I heard her ask a question."

"Listen, Dale, I've been in your shoes, and one thing you will learn very soon is that your success or failure in that position has a lot more to do with the bad occurrences that you prevent from happening than the good things that you make happen and take credit for. This whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned 'Day in the Life' is going to be a distant memory twenty-four hours after it airs, but Azeeza is going to go home tonight and wonder if she was asked to be here today because we understand and appreciate her contributions or if she was invited to serve as a prop in a cartoonish American propaganda production. You probably think that you're doing things that haven't been done before, but I presided over five 'Days in the Life,' and every one of them went off without the journalists hijacking a presidential event."

"I'm really sorry, and you're right. It's my fault, entirely, Madam Secretary."

"Let me finish. It is your job to protect the president from herself with the press. Do you know where she is right now? Is she in the hallway still talking to those idiots?"

"I don't believe so, Madam Secretary, but I can't be sure at the moment."

"You should probably go find out."

Melanie slammed the phone down and looked around the conference room to make sure that no one was there to witness her outburst. She reached for a bottle of water, and as she drank it, she knew that she shouldn't have been so hard on Dale. She could hardly afford to alienate anyone else in Charlotte's inner circle. Melanie packed up her papers for the long flight home. As she headed for the door to partic.i.p.ate in the final photo op of her trip, a departure photo with the commanders and a few of the top trainers, she wondered how much longer she could tolerate her outsider status with the West Wing. It was one thing to have shaky relations with a White House chief of staff. It made the job of any cabinet secretary difficult but not impossible. But once the people around a president sense that the president has lost confidence in a Cabinet secretary, that official plunges to persona non grata in a nanosecond. It wasn't clear that this had occurred yet, but Melanie sensed that she was viewed as an advisor with diminishing importance to the success of Charlotte's second term. Melanie knew from decades of experience in D.C. that it was best to seek out other opportunities before her stock dropped too much further and exchanges like the one that had just transpired with Dale ended up in the press.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Dale Dale took the stairs back up to her office two at a time and tried to shake off Melanie's tongue-lashing. Sure, they hadn't planned for Lucy and Richard to question the Iraqis, but the point of these interactions was twofold: to make the Iraqis feel invested in the American partnership and to show the American public that there were credible partners who would eventually take control of their own country's security.

Dale was eager to get back to her office and check on the coverage of the speech. She was afraid that they were losing the "spin war," with Republicans and prolife advocates filling the airwaves with their heated complaints. With the CBS crew huddled in the corner capturing B-roll, Dale looked up at the wall of televisions in her office. The abortion protests were still going strong. Dale turned the volume up on one of the stations and listened to a couple of the speakers. They were so loud that even with the televisions muted, Dale could hear the crowd's cheers from inside her West Wing office. She looked around her desk for her morning coffee.

"Clare?" she called.

Her a.s.sistant appeared in the doorway. "Another coffee?"

"Please."

Clare disappeared, and Dale started going through her e-mail messages. After returning everything with "urgent" in the subject line, she leaned back in her chair and drank a few sips of the extra-large coffee that Clare had placed on her desk. She felt like she'd been awake for ten hours already, but it wasn't even eight A.M. She shared a wall with her deputy, but she didn't want the film crew to put together a montage of Dale sitting in her chair yelling for her staff. Dale dialed Marguerite's direct line and asked her to come in.

"Don't worry about Secretary Kingston," Marguerite remarked, before she even made it through the doorway. Dale eyed the camera crew and then looked back at Marguerite to make clear that they should not speak openly with the cameras rolling. Marguerite was wearing a tight black skirt and jacket with a lacy camisole underneath and open-toe heels.

Marguerite smiled warmly at the camera crew. "Please don't use that, guys."

They nodded their heads and a.s.sured her that they would not.

"Do you mind if I talk to Dale alone for two seconds? I promise I'll let you back in for the good stuff."

Miraculously, they exited the room without objection. Dale shook her head in amazement. Marguerite had a magic touch with the press.

It helped that she was a beautiful Cuban from Miami who dressed like one of the female stars of a Spanish-language soap opera. She was smart and unflappable, and when she was angry, she swore in Spanish. Half of the press was in love with her, and the other half wanted to look like her. More important, she was hardworking and shameless when it came to advancing the president's agenda. Dale found her indispensible. When Dale was first appointed press secretary, she'd elevated Marguerite, who'd worked in the press office as a spokesperson for the two major Spanish-language networks.

"What did you hear about Melanie?" Dale asked.

"That she was furious that Lucy and Richard asked questions."

"It was the president who turned over the floor to them."

"I know. Don't worry about it."

"Whatever. Did all of the morning shows lead with today's speech?" Dale asked.

"The speech-slash-protests."

"Right."

"The other nets are feeling left out today, so I thought I'd get the vice president to do a round robin and talk to ABC, NBC, Fox, and CNN."

"Good thinking. Five minutes with each of the White House correspondents, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. What else?"

"Do you think we should have the president call in to Rush or Hannity or one of the other conservative talkers, to show that she still cares about the base and understands they won't agree with today's speech, but she honors all points of view, or something like that?"

"It might make things worse. Maybe Melanie can do those. DOD could pitch it as an update from her visit to the troops."

"I'll wait a couple of hours before I put in that request with the DOD press office. Oh, and the New York Times wants to know if their request for their own 'Day in the Life' is still alive."

"I've said no three times. What is wrong with them?"

"They are the New. York. Times," Marguerite said, with feigned indignation that made Dale laugh out loud.

"I will call them again today," Marguerite promised.

"Anything else breaking?"

"We have a stack of requests for San Francisco that we need to go through. The local press thinks that the president should talk to them while she's out there this summer."

"She's going there for vacation," Dale objected.

"I know, I know, I will handle it," Marguerite soothed.

"Did anything important happen in senior staff?"

"Does anything important ever happen in senior staff?"

"Did anyone complain about the camera?"

"Everyone seemed to like it. Larry gave an extra-long presentation on the expectations for Friday's job number, and Bonnie gave the longest report from the White House counsel's office that I've heard since I've been attending senior staff meetings."

Dale laughed.

"You have dinner with the parents tonight, right?" Marguerite asked.

"I'm sure they already hate me. Midwesterners don't usually approve of commitment-phobic New York women as mates for their only sons."

"Warren knows that he is a lucky man. That's all that matters."

"I work all the time, I can't cook or make a bed, and my idea of getting serious is sharing frequent flier miles. He won the girlfriend lottery with me," Dale quipped.

At that moment, Clare burst into Dale's office.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry, but Sam called to see if either of you were planning to join them in the Oval."

"Join who in the Oval?" Dale asked.

"Apparently, the president invited Lucy and Richard up to the Oval Office after the videoconference, and she's waved Sam away every time she's tried to break it up."

"c.r.a.p. That wasn't on the schedule. How long have they been in there?"

"According to Sam, they all came up from the videoconference together."

"Jesus. I'll go get them. Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"I thought they were in their hold," Marguerite said.

"Gather the entire staff, please, and find out how it is that we lost a network anchor team inside the West Wing," Dale ordered.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Charlotte After the meeting in the Situation Room, Charlotte invited Richard and Lucy to the Oval Office to visit with her for a few minutes. She thought it would help the piece if she spent some off-the-record time with them. Even Charlotte had to admit that Richard and Lucy knew how to stage a clever charm offensive.

Lucy would say something outrageous, and Richard would fall all over himself to apologize for her cra.s.sness. They'd talk among themselves for a minute or so, and she'd promise him that she wouldn't offend their guest again. Then Lucy would ask the same probing question in a more polite and politically correct way. Richard would feign outrage, as if to suggest that he simply couldn't control her even if he'd wanted to, but it was clear that their routine yielded the exact results they were after.

Charlotte watched them put on a fairly entertaining show for the waiter from the White House Mess who came in to take their coffee order. Lucy pretended to be insulted by something Richard had said, and Richard kept apologizing to the waiter for Lucy's bad manners (she'd stuffed a stack of c.o.c.ktail napkins into her purse and was asking about taking home a coffee cup and saucer). Charlotte could see how it could all become a little too much, but she was impressed that they didn't seem to take themselves too seriously. So far, they seemed genuinely interested in her views about presiding over a bipartisan White House staff. They'd likened it to The Brady Bunch, and the comparison wasn't too far off. Maureen had brought her "kids" to the family, and Charlotte had hers. They couldn't supervise all of their interactions, but they both hoped that everyone would learn to get along. Dale had proven, once again, that she had excellent judgment when it came to doling out Charlotte's interviews.

Charlotte sat across from them and asked Lucy about her twenty-month-old twins. She spoke enthusiastically about juggling motherhood and a high-pressure job. While she was talking, it was clear to Charlotte that Lucy didn't suffer from the sort of guilt that Charlotte had struggled with for nearly two decades for abandoning her young children and her husband to pursue elected office. It was at once impressive and startling.

Charlotte wouldn't admit it to anyone on her staff, but she was actually enjoying herself.

"That's the private dining room and your private bathroom over there, right?" Richard asked.

"Ooh, can I use it? I have had to pee since before the meeting in the Sit Room."

Before Charlotte could answer, Richard stood to block Lucy's path to the bathroom.

"I can't take you anywhere," he scolded. "Madam President, I'm sorry. I bought her one of those books about acceptable social behavior, but she refuses to read it," Richard joked.

Charlotte told Lucy to go ahead.

The president's a.s.sistant, Samantha, wasn't accustomed to seeing her boss hold court with reporters, so she poked her head in every few minutes to see if anyone needed anything. On her fourth attempt, she flung open the door and cleared her throat to get Charlotte's attention.

"Madam President, you have a call with the president of Brazil in ten minutes. The translators are here to set up." It was a lie. The call was in thirty minutes, but Sam was trying to protect her from the anchors. Charlotte smiled.